Vodacom's incompetence is affecting my work...

Recently ported over my number from Telkom to Vodacom. All went well except that I can no longer send and receive SMSes. I've followed the necessary measures provided by Vodacom to rectify the issue but nothing works.

I've been to a branch, they didn't help at all besides logging a reference ticket.

I phoned the call centre. Their call centre agent assured me the issue would be fixed after they "fixed it on their end", but was unable to tell me what exactly the fix does. Needless to say, I ended the call and restarted my phone - it didn't work. Back to square one.

Their chatbot is useless since it actually doesn't connect you with an agent - it's a glorified USSD intergration tool. Stop talking it "AI", it's not.

The "talk to agent online" feature is basically non-existent on their help portal. I get it, you want to reduce call volumes and get people to fix their own issues instead. But then don't advertise it in all your correspondence and provide hyperlinks for it.

I've probably sent about 6 emails now, each response is essentially useless, and things I've already tried (and informed them of). Once I reply to a request, I have to reauthorize my request, each time. Really?

Surely you have a system where you can check traces of SMSes to determine any issues before wasting a clients time? This matter is becoming time-sensitive now because it's preventing me from doing my job as I'm unable to receive 2FA pins due to, potentially, your incompetence.

Overall, this has been a sour experience and for Vodacom (a multi-billion rand company) that's unable to invest in its staff and provide the only service that they're supposed to, cellular connectivity - they do a pretty poor job at it, unfortunately.

Also to mention, when I tried opening a contract up the other day, their system that facilitates the transfer was offline. It's 2021 and a multi-billion rand company is still unable to implement a highly available solution? Come on guys, seriously.